


WJ-III (A)

by paradisecity



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Mensa, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-04
Updated: 2008-04-04
Packaged: 2018-01-09 06:10:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1142411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradisecity/pseuds/paradisecity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five things John and Rod and Rodney didn't see coming when the Johns switched universes, and one thing they should have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	WJ-III (A)

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Mensa AU fic exchange, for a prompt wherein the Johns switch universes and others may not be immediately aware of the switch.

** spatial relations**   
It's nothing Rod hasn't done a hundred times before, pulling John out of a hallway and into an empty room for a kiss or a little something more. John can spend days holed up in his lab and sometimes Rod's too busy doing the same to stop him. So they steal five minutes, ten, twenty, and Rod never stops being flattered by the look on John's face afterward, like he can't believe Rod still needs him that much.

But this time it doesn't go as planned. Rod pulls John out of the E-4 hallway and into one of the engineering team's storage rooms. He kisses John slowly, a _Hi, where've you been, I missed you_ sort of kiss, then backs him up against the wall and lets it get suggestive with soft lips and slick tongue, an _If you've got ten minutes, I'll show you just how much_ kind of kiss.

That's when John pushes him away -- not hard, but with definite muscle behind it -- and the look on his face is somewhere between panic and wry amusement. "Damn," he says, "how do I never see this coming?"

\--------

Four hours and a tempest of recriminations later, the brightest minds on Atlantis have concluded that no, the Lt. Col. Sheppard who exited the gate is not the same as the Dr. Sheppard who entered it; no, no one managed to notice for three whole days; yes, they think they can get the Johns back where they belong; and no, Radek is not taking bets on which version of Atlantis finds the solution first -- at least not while Rod's in the room.

"Right now, our John would be calling you morons and threatening mass firings," Rod says to the room at large. "If you can't get him back, I'll do it for him. Get to work."

As the clatter of keys begins, Rod walks to the back of the room where the other John has been trying to blend into the wall for the last few hours. "Three days?" Rod says. "You have some explaining to do. But the least I can do is get you lunch while you do it. Come on."

 

** concept formation **  
John plunks his tablet on the lab table unceremoniously and proclaims, "Your network sucks."

Rodney, who can't decide if his constant bickering with John over the last few days is more a function of _You're almost as smart as I am, where have you been all my life?_ or _You're almost as smart as I am, this universe isn't big enough for the both of us_ , just rolls his eyes and goes back to his simulation. "That's not even a networked computer."

"That's exactly my point!" he says, sitting down and stealing Rodney's coffee. "How am I supposed to hack this John's records if my computer isn't networked?"

Rodney steals his coffee right back. "Why do think we gave you a non-networked computer in the first place?"

"Why do you even have non-networked computers? Which moron designed your network architecture?"

"I did," Rodney says. "And that's a diagnostic tablet. There's no reason for it to be networked."

"Of course there is. You never know what you're going to have on a hand in an emergency and a computer that can't access the mainframe is as useless as not having one at all. All the computers on my Atlantis are networked."

"You must be the moron who designed that architecture. Do the words 'security leak' mean anything to you?"

"Please," John scoffs. "No one gets through my security."

"Oh, your kung fu is so _not_ the best."

"Really?" John asks, and nudges Rodney's coffee cup across the table. It's empty.

"That's the third time today!" Rodney snaps. "If you don't stop that, I'm going to lock you out of the labs."

"Like I couldn't break in. Rod threatens to sneak a marriage license into my signature file; it's much more effective."

Rodney chokes. "What?"

"So he can make me legally miserable for the rest of our lives. Now that's a threat."

Rodney just stares at him.

"What?" John says. Then, "Oh. _Oh._ You and John aren't...really?"

Rodney shakes his head mutely.

"Oh. Um. Sorry?" John picks up Rodney's cup. "I'll go get you more coffee so you can freak out in private."

"Thanks," Rodney says weakly. "I'd appreciate that."

 

** object assembly **  
The first salvo of John's tirade is lost to the event horizon of the incoming wormhole, and that's a clear sign Dr. Sheppard is back.

"--incompetent are you?" he demands. "Do you have any idea what I bet Rodney on you making first contact? I know when I'm not here the IQ of this place decreases dramatically, but I should fire the lot of you if collectively you can't find a way to send a simple interuniversal radio signal."

"It's probably not too late to send him back," Grodin says to Rod.

"Don't you dare," Rod says, and takes the gateroom stairs two at a time.

\--------

"Huh," Rodney says to Radek when John walks through the gate, apparently in one piece and in the right place if the familiar slouch is anything to go by. "I wasn't sure that would really work."

"You told Dr. Sheppard you were certain," Radek protests.

"I didn't want to scare him before I sent him through a potentially fatal wormhole," Rodney says. "You saw how prone to panic he is. It's so unbecoming."

 

** retrieval fluency **  
The silence that fills the empty space between Rod and John is palpable. At least, until John explodes. Quietly.

"Did you really think you could just casually work that in there and I wouldn't notice?" he hisses, half watching the conference room door for arrivals to the meeting and half glaring at Rod. "'Hi, John, how was your day, did you remember to bring the specs on the jumper hyperdrive, and by the way, _I kissed the other John?_ ' Really, Rod? Really?"

"That's not exactly what I said," Rod counters. He greets Grodin and Zelenka as they enter the room and organize their files, their laptops whirring as they boot up.

John rolls his chair closer to Rod's and whispers waspishly, "Don't think I don't know you did this right before the meeting so I wouldn't have a chance to yell at you properly."

Rod leans in and whispers back, "Actually, I did it so you'd have an hour to calm down a little before you started yelling at me."

"Do you really think I'm going to be any less outraged in an hour?"

"From the look of things, I probably shouldn't bet on it."

"Bet on sleeping alone for a month," John hisses, and rolls his chair to the other end of the table.

Halfway through the meeting when Kavanagh starts lobbying for more database time, Rod slides a Post-It to John across the table. _I didn't know he wasn't you,_ it says. John reads it and dismissively tucks it into one of his folders, purposefully ignoring Rod's attempt to catch his eye.

Ten minutes later, as Kavanagh's still droning on, Rod slides another Post-It to John. _I'd never have done it if I'd known,_ it reads. John tucks that one into the folder, too, then stands to get everyone's attention. "In twenty minutes Kavanagh will give the rest of you a chance to whine," he says, "and half an hour after that, we'll all conclude that our resources are still optimally allocated. Can we skip ahead to that portion of the meeting, please? Because all I'm hearing now is, 'Blah blah, whine, blah blah blah.'" When the others remain silent, looking properly cowed, he says, "Good. Now, Simpson, you had something new on the city's cloaking interface?"

The meeting proceeds without further incident. Gall is last on the agenda and as he outlines his plan to improve the stability of the northeast tower, Rod slides the entire pad of Post-Its to John. The note at the top says simply, _I'm sorry._ John dismisses it as before and sends the pad back with a shove of his finger.

Rod slides the pad to him again, more insistently. When John still ignores him, Rod reaches over and sets the pad right in front of him. John sighs, but Rodney gestures at it meaningfully.

John reads the note again. It still says I'm sorry, and he tears it off to write a note telling Rod to stop bothering him. But the second note says I'm sorry, too. So does the third. And the fourth. John flips through the pad and finds the same message written in the middle of every sheet, not a single one left blank. He glances over at Rod, but he's staring straight ahead with a small, satisfied smile on his face.

When the meeting adjourns a few minutes later and people start to filter out, John says, "I hope the trees you killed in your adolescent attempt to apologize were worth it," but there's a certain fondness in his tone.

"The Post-Its are recycled -- at least 30% postconsumer content. And the trees are well worth it if it worked. Did it?"

John shrugs as he gathers his files and the hyperdrive specs.

"Oh, come on," Rod says. "You can't blame me for something I didn't know I was doing."

"I'm pretty sure I can."

"Of course you can, but it wouldn't be fair."

"Who said anything about fair?"

Rod sighs. "If I slipped another marriage license into your signature file and shanghaied your troth, I'm pretty sure you'd be squawking about fair."

"Okay, first," John says, "I don't squawk. And second, 'shanghai my troth?' Really?"

Rod rolls his eyes. "Just forgive me already."

"Fine," John says, "but I still get to yell at you later."

"Deal." Rod picks up his own files and as they leave the conference room, asks, "Can we get lunch before the yelling? I'm hungry."

"God, yes," John says. "I'm _starving._ "

 

** picture recognition **  
"Hey," Rodney says when John opens his door. "I know it's supposed to be team movie night, but Ronon and Teyla are still off world with Lorne, so I thought we could..." He brandishes a DVD. "I brought _Galaxy Quest._ "

John's been a little distant since the switch, tense in a way Rodney hasn't seen him in a long time. He doesn't look any better tonight, but he says, "Yeah, sure. Come in."

John gets his laptop from the desk while Rodney takes off his shoes. He picks up the sudoku book lying on John's bed flips idly through until he finds the last puzzle John was working on. "Hey, don't," John says sharply.

"What?"

"That's my last book. Don't finish that puzzle, McKay."

"I wasn't going to," Rodney says. "I was just looking. And you're almost done, anyway."

"I know. That's why I'm taking my time."

"If you're running out, I think Miko has some left." Rodney sets the book on the nightstand, unmolested. "She'll probably trade you if you still have some of those jelly beans."

"I'll look into it," John says, but it doesn't sound like he will. He brings his laptop over to the bed and they settle down together in the too narrow space, John putting more room between them than usual. He loads the DVD in the drive and starts the movie, but when Rodney reaches over to adjust the screen, he flinches away. Rodney frowns, but doesn't say anything.

The movie is one they've both seen before and their attention wanders quickly. But when John's checked out completely by the time Jason first meets Sarris, Rodney reaches out and pauses the movie.

"What are you doing?" John asks.

Rodney gives John a warning glance. "Don't make me do this."

"Do what?"

"Ask you what's wrong."

"Nothing's wrong."

"Something is," Rodney says. "You've been weird ever since you came back."

"I'm sorry I found being trapped in a parallel universe weird," John says defensively. "Sue me."

"I don't know what you're complaining about. I was the one had the short of end the stick -- you got to hang out playing James Bond for three days while I worked nonstop trying to get you back. Trust me, whatever you were doing couldn't have been as weird for you as working with their Sheppard was for me."

"Right. Their valuable Sheppard," John says, and it's hard to miss the anger in his tone even if he tries to hide it.

"What's the problem with their Sheppard?"

"Nothing, except I replaced him for three days and no one noticed."

"Is that what this is about?" Rodney asks, and he looks relieved.

"What else would it be about? I think nobody noticing I was gone for days at a time is pretty damn important."

"That wasn't about you, it was about him," Rodney says. "Maybe they didn't notice he was gone, but I would have noticed if you were gone, even if the other Sheppard hadn't passed out from manly panic in the middle of the gateroom."

John grimaces. "I still can't believe he did that."

"Oh, I can," Rodney says. "After working with him for a few days, it comes as no surprise." He pauses, then asks, "Why didn't you say anything to them?"

"I didn't know what was going on," John says. "For all I knew, they could have been Replicators or the whole thing could have been some sort of hallucination. I couldn't draw attention to myself without knowing if I was safe."

"So you're bothered that they didn't notice you, but they didn't notice you because you tried to keep it that way," Rodney says.

John rolls his eyes. "Well, it sounds stupid when you say it like that."

Rodney gives him a half smile. "It says a lot about this galaxy that the horses in Occam's razor are nanites and mist creatures."

"Yeah," John says, reaching out to open the laptop again. "It does. Back to the movie now?"

"Sure," Rodney says, and as the movie starts, John shifts closer for a better view.

Later, as the Protector tries to fly through the magnetic minefield, John says casually, "Earlier, did you think I was talking about that other thing?"

"What other thing?" Rodney asks, and then his eyes widen a little. "Oh. Um. Maybe."

John's tone is light, easy. "It surprised me at first."

Rodney nods, looking straight ahead at the screen. "Me, too."

"But after a while," John says carefully, "I wasn't as surprised anymore."

"Really?" Rodney's eyes are still on the screen, but all his attention is focused on John.

"Sometimes it just takes a little getting used to. That approach doesn't work all the time, but it works some of the time. It just depends."

"On?" Rodney asks.

"A lot of things," John says, and when moves closer this time, it might not be for a better view of the movie.

 

** comprehension **  
Six months after the Johns have successfully returned to their respective universes, Rodney gets an urgent call on his radio at two in the morning. He reaches out and fumbles for his headset, then grunts sleepily in response.

"Rodney," Radek says breathlessly. "Come to the lab, _now._ We have just gotten a transmission from Dr. Sheppard -- complete plans for a jumper hyperdrive."

"What?" Rodney says blearily, then, instantly awake, "Did you say hyperdrive?"

"Yes, yes," Radek says impatiently. "Come to the lab. I will radio Col. Sheppard."

"I'll get him," Rodney says, already out of bed and hopping around trying to get his pants on in the dark. "We'll be right there." He keys off the radio, then shoves at John, who bats his hand away. "Get up, get up," he says. "Radek has plans for a hyperdrive."

John groans and pulls the pillow over his head. After a moment, he peeks out from underneath it. "Hyperdrive?"

"Yes," Rodney says, and throws John's shirt at him. "Hurry up, come on. And no," he says, before John can even ask, "we are not naming the jumper it goes into the _Millennium Falcon._ "


End file.
